MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

T. Grove called the meeting to order at 12:20 p.m. T. Grove introduced Rebecca Foster and Kelly Yang from The Cornell Daily Sun.

Present: J. Boodley Buchanan, B. Cristelli, D. Brooks, L. Croll Howell, B. Esty, K. Fahey, C. Ferguson, T. Grove, M. Kitchen, L. Meyerhoff, L. Morris, G. Osborne, B. Schaffner, G. Stewart

Absent: L. Sayam, J. Seymour

Also Present: R. Foster and K. Yang from The Cornell Daily Sun, B. McKinney, A. O’Donnell

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

T. Grove removed the transportation item from the agenda because J. Lalley was not available to attend the meeting. She added to “New Business” the President’s Address to Staff and topics the members of the EA would like the President to discuss at their meeting with him next month.

III. Approval of Minutes

L. Morris made a motion to approve the minutes from November 2, 2011. C. Ferguson seconded. The EA unanimously approved the minutes from November 2, 2011.

IV. Business of the Day

a. Transportation Update - Joseph Lalley

T. Grove said she received an e-mail from J. Lalley he would be unavailable to attend the meeting. He has met with the Campus Infrastructure Committee and will attempt to reschedule with the EA, possibly in December. T. Grove than asked B. Schaffner if transportation was discussed at the last UA meeting and could she briefly inform the EA what was discussed. B. Schaffner said the UA discussed a resolution on transportation regarding accessibility changes. However, the resolution was tabled until next meeting because there are still many details that are unclear.

b. Resolution to move Internal Operating Rules

T. Grove reminded the members of the EA about the resolution to move the chair of communications to the vice chair, which would make him/her a member of the Executive Committee. This resolution changes the way smaller matters such as these are dealt with so they can be approved by the EA without approval from the president. T. Grove then asked for a vote. The resolution passed with a vote of 14–0−0.

c. Update on President’s address

The executive committee met with B. Esty on November 14 to go over set up in Bailey Hall. T. Grove said the EA would not be able to get into Bailey Hall until 11:15–11:30 on the day of the event. She asked if the EA members could please arrive by 11:30 to help set up and usher. The members of the EA should wear their EA shirts to the event. L. Morris handed out posters for the members of the EA to put up around campus advertising the address. N. Doolittle will be writing about the event in The PawPrint and the information will also be published in The Cornell Chronicle.

L. Croll Howell asked if the event will be live streamed? T. Grove stated the EA is currently looking into prices but the event will be live streamed. K. Fahey questioned whether closed captioning would happen once the live streaming process has been determined? T. Grove will ask if this is possible but she stated there is limited time to set up beforehand which may not give the CIT people enough time to set up live captioning. T. Grove stated the winners have been notified and they are all very excited. Finally, L. Meyerhoff explained the United Way will be there and people who made pledges prior to the address will be entered into a drawing. T. Grove is also looking into purchasing flowers for the United Way people as well.

V. Report from the Chair

a. Town Gown Awards

G. Stewart explained the group is currently working on planning the event. The event is scheduled for December 3. The purpose of the event is to show support for campus and local town cooperation. It is open to the public and G. Stewart is hoping the atmosphere will be fun. The event will feature President Skorton as a speaker and there will be gratitude awards given to groups from Cornell and the Ithaca Community. G. Stewart asked if he could mention the EA as a supporter of the organization. B. Esty asked what the criteria was. G. Stewart stated the EA would have to make a small donation to the group but mainly be supportive of the group as much as they can by attending the event to show support. T. Grove asked the members of the EA to vote for the support of the Town Gown Group. The EA voted unanimously to support the group.

VI. Committee Reports

T. Grove stated she would be meeting with M. Opperman, B. Schaffner and B. McKinney, on November 17. She asked the EA if anyone had any issues or concerns they would like brought up. L. Meyerhoff mentioned there has been a lot of losses (employee deaths) this semester and suggested they be sensitive to this and acknowledge it to M. Opperman.

a. Communications - Leslie Morris

L. Morris stated the group met last week. They talked about supporting marketing for the President’s Address and she urged EA members to put up flyers around campus. L. Morris also passed out a new EA tri-fold, created by G. Osborne, and asked the members to hand them out interested employees. The other item the committee is focusing on on is the EA survey. L. Morris had a phone call with SRI recently to discuss the creation of the survey and possible questions. Jasmin Miller from SRI will be coming to the December 7 meeting to talk about the survey questions further. L. Morris will be sending out the questions and draft that the Communications Committee has so far so the EA can peruse it and give their input. Another issue covered at the meeting was the creation of an EA logo. Steve Perina is working on the logo and will be giving the draft to the committee within the next few weeks. Finally, L. Morris stated that a new issue of the EA E-new will be coming out soon and encouraged the EA to contact her if they had anything they would like included in the newsletter.

There was then a discussion regarding the EA survey. B. McKinney asked whether demographics are going to be asked on the survey and if so suggested they should be worded the same way as the current EA survey. L. Morris stated that as of right now it is uncertain as to whether or not demographics are important and relevant for the objectives of this survey. L. Croll Howell suggested that the EA should decided as to whether or not to add questions of demographic after the other questions are decided upon. There was then a length discussion regarding sexual orientation questions. B. Schaffner stated that there is currently a resolution regarding gender neutral bathrooms that was discussed at the UA meeting. It was tabled until the next meeting. C. Ferguson suggested using the language of “all gender” instead of gender-neutral restrooms. It was finally decided that the EA should bring in someone from the LGBT to give a brief presentation.

b. Personnel — Jeanne Boodley Buchanan

J. Boodley Buchanan explained the group met on November 15. There are currently four members on the committee. The committee has decided to focus on the issue of the bereavement policy being too short, as it is currently only three days for the loss of a child or spouse. J. Boodley Buchanan stated each member has taken a different topic and will be researching information regarding what actions and steps other institutions may have taken and how new policies were enacted. G. Stewart suggested the committee should meet with Josh Adams because he is in charge of all of the policies and knows the best way to go about implementing an amendment. The next meeting for the committee will not be until January 2012.

L. Meyerhoff asked if currently the bereavement period came out of the employee’s vacation time. L. Croll Howell explained there is a three-day bereavement leave given but the employee can take extra time, which would be counted as vacation. L. Croll Howell suggested looking into making bereavement a part of sick leave since you are mentally unwell after losing someone. There was also discussion regarding support groups for people who have lost someone. L. Croll Howell stated the hospice center is extremely supportive and has excellent counselors for this issue. B. Cristelli said for the age group of 13–18 year olds there is no program. G. Stewart will be looking into the issue and will be reporting back to the EA at a later meeting. L. Morris asked J. Boodley Buchanan to write up a summary of the committee and the goals they are hoping to accomplish so it can be published in the upcoming EA news.

VII. Old Business

B. Schaffner updated the EA about the last UA meeting. At the meeting, each committee gave an update. B. Schaffner stated the Welfare Committee discussed the childcare center and possibly creating a sliding scale so grad students and lower income people could use the childcare center. This committee is also looking into outreach and may look into publishing more articles in The Cornell Daily Sun and The Cornell Chronicle. Next, she said the Codes and Judicial Committee had a meeting. C. Ferguson attended the meeting and stated the committee is focusing on the “Dear Colleague Letter” regarding the proper handling of cases of sexual harassment. The issue is very complicated and the CJC is attempting to clarify who should be working on the issue and what actions need to be taken. B. Schaffner stated the minutes for the CJC Committee meetings are on the UA website if anyone is interested in more information. The Infrastructure Committee met and discussed the TCAT issue and parking accessibility. The last committee B. Schaffner talked about was the Planning Committee. One of the topics discussed was the sustainability committee and how people are appointed to this committee. They also discussed how this will effect the purview of the UA.

VIII. New Business

T. Grove said the EA should compile topics they would like to have addressed by President Skorton and M. Opperman at the December 21 meeting. The members of the EA agreed the results of the staff survey should be discussed. T. Grove will ask for the results of the survey prior to the December 21st meeting so the EA can have questions regarding results or issues.

B. Esty asked if the lay-offs in the CIT department could be discussed and if the EA could receive an update on what other departments may be expecting lay-offs as well. T. Grove said CIT is still going through the process but most other groups are finished. T. Grove asked President Skorton to address this issue at the Address. C. Ferguson asked about the Bane report and whether it is saving money? T. Grove explained M. Opperman has said the recommendations have helped and the budget is about ninety percent in balance. G. Stewart suggested there be an article in the EA E-news saying the EA will be meeting with President Skorton and M. Opperman and if anyone has a question they would like to ask they should e-mail the EA. C. Ferguson asked about the NYC Tech Campus but B. Schaffner mentioned the discussion has been pushed back to January. The final topic brought up was the means restriction issue. G. Stewart updated the EA explaining the group is working on making the means restrictions cost neutral to the city. There is still a lot of discussion between the group and the city regarding the means restriction and G. Stewart will keep the EA updated on the topic.

The EA asked L. Meyerhoff for an update on the Soup and Hope. L. Meyerhoff said all six speakers have been scheduled and the events will begin on January 19, 2012 and will occur every other week. She asked the members of the EA to volunteer for at least one event. She also encouraged the members to send in photos of hope, which will be hung around the campus to brighten the winter darkness. L. Meyerhoff also mentioned at Soup and Hope they will be selling mugs with a spoon for five dollars.

IX. Open Forum

There was no open forum for this meeting.

X. Adjournment

G. Osborne made a motion to adjourn the meeting. B. Schaffner seconded. The EA meeting was adjourned at 1:30 p.m.